The present invention is generally related to manually-adjustable vehicular seats and, more particularly, to a manual seat adjuster equipped with an easy entry latch release mechanism that is operable to relatch the vehicle seat at a predetermined memory position.
Virtually all modern motor vehicles are equipped with front seats that can be selectively adjusted for providing increased comfort and convenience to the seat occupant. At a minimum, most front seats include a two-way seat adjuster that can be selectively actuated by the seat occupant for adjusting the longitudinal (i.e., "fore" and "aft") position of the seat. In most manually-adjustable seats, the two-way seat adjuster includes a pair of laterally-spaced slide assemblies, with each slide assembly having a lower track rigidly secured to the vehicle's floor structure and a carriage mounted to the vehicle seat that is supported for longitudinal sliding movement on the lower track. Moreover, such two-way seat adjusters also include a seat latch mechanism which normally operates in a latched mode for releasably locking at least one of the carriages to its corresponding lower track, thereby inhibiting longitudinal movement of the vehicle seat. A release handle permits the seat occupant to deliberately shift the seat latch mechanism out of its latched mode and into an unlatched mode for permitting selective fore/aft adjustment of the vehicle seat. As is also common, most two-way seat adjusters include a biasing mechanism for normally urging the carriages (and the vehicle seat) to their forwardmost longitudinal position on the lower tracks. Exemplary seat adjusters are disclosed in commonly-owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,207,480, 5,286,076, 5,322,348 and 5,383,640.
To provide increased access to the rear seating area in two door motor vehicles, many front seats are also equipped with a seatback dump apparatus and a walk-in or "easy entry" latch release mechanism. Conventionally, the seatback dump apparatus supports the seatback for pivotal movement relative to the seat bottom and includes a seatback latch mechanism that is normally operable in a locked mode for releasably retaining the seatback in an upright position relative to the seat bottom. A separate release handle is provided for selectively shifting the seatback latch mechanism from its locked mode into a released mode, whereby the seatback can be subsequently pivoted forwardly from the upright position to a dumped position. Most commonly, the easy entry latch release mechanism is arranged to operably interconnect the seatback latch mechanism to the seat latch mechanism such that pivotal movement of the seatback toward its forwardly dumped position causes the seat latch mechanism to be automatically shifted from its latched mode into its unlatched mode. Thereafter, the biasing mechanism urges the front seat to slide to its forwardmost position on the lower tracks. When the seatback is returned to its upright position, the easy entry latch release mechanism causes the seat latch mechanism to be shifted back into its latched mode in response to the seatback latch mechanism being returned to its locked mode.
While vehicular seats equipped with a seatback dump apparatus and an easy entry latch release mechanism offer the advantage of enhanced access to the rear seating area, in some instances, their usage results in other convenience features being directly compromised. In particular, it is often required that the longitudinal position of the seat be re-adjusted following return of the seatback to its upright position due to the seat latch mechanism shifting back into its latched mode when the vehicle seat is located in its forwardmost position. To alleviate this inconvenience, a plethora of memory devices have been developed which function to return the vehicle seat to the last longitudinally-adjusted position it had prior to actuation of the easy entry latch release mechanism. However, most memory arrangements are extremely complicated and expensive due to the numerous components required. Accordingly, there is a continuing need to develop alternatives to such memory devices which afford practical levels of convenience and comfort while concomitantly reducing the overall cost and complexity of the vehicle seat.